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MBMBAM.jpg

'My Brother, My Brother And Me' Is The Only Advice Podcast That Might Actually Teach You Something . . . About Boners

By Emily Cutler | Podcasts | September 3, 2015 |

By Emily Cutler | Podcasts | September 3, 2015 |


Here at Pajiba, we strive to bring you the very best in entertainment. If there’s a TV show out there that we think you’ll like, we want to tell you about it. When we know what your new favorite movie is going to be, we show you why. And when it comes to podcasts, we’d like to continue that tradition.

But there’s been something missing from our podcast recommendations. I look at the highbrow podcasts that have been recommended here, at the detailed reporting, at the whimsical attempts to bring magic back into our lives, at the slightly lurid but still journalistically based unearthings of Hollywood’s Golden Era and think, “Sure. But where are all the dick jokes at?”

The dick jokes, my friends, are at My Brother, My Brother and Me (MBMBAM for short. Pronounced MaBimBam.) It’s a weekly comedy advice podcast hosted by three real life brothers: your oldest brother Justin, your middelest brother Travis, and your sweet, sweet, babiest baby brother Griffin. And yes, that is how they introduce themselves every week. The advice format is really an excuse for the Brothers to hang out for an hour or so a week. Most of the show is devoted to long, tangential goofs. Remember those conversations you had in college where you and a few friends would stay up all night taking about philosophy and art and politics and how the culmination of those things would change the world? This show is like the conversations you’d have at a bar just after graduating college where you’d talk about what an asshole you used to be.

The advice, in fact, is so secondary to the point of the show that the opening disclaimer actively warns people not to take it. They are just not good at offering people insight into how to fix a situation. Their favorite bit of advice is often “pack your bags and move away.” Bad break-up? Pack your bags and move away. Uncomfortable meeting at work? Pack your bags and move away. Your parents accidentally opened the dildo you ordered, and now they want to know why a 19-year-old man needs a dildo? Tell them to fuck themselves (not with the dildo though. That’s yours). You’re 19 and an adult and you don’t have to explain yourself to them if you want to get ram jammed.

Which is really the best part of their “advice.” They’ll actively dissuade you from listening to them, but they do actually give out some good life lessons from time-to-time. Ground rules include:

— Live like you’re dying. Downside: you’re not actually dying. You only live once, but you have to live the whole thing. So don’t be an asshole.

— Don’t ever hit on your local barista/ server/ anyone who gets paid to be nice to you. They’re just trying to do their fucking job.

— Don’t make grand romantic gestures for women you don’t know. Buying a dozen roses from the cute checkout girl and then giving those roses to her? No. Don’t do that. That breaks rules one and two.

— Furies? They’re ok to date. Don’t make assumptions about entire communities and possibly foreign sexual preferences without familiarizing yourself first.

— Juggalos? Also ok to date. Jugglers? Fuck no. Absolutely no wizards or prestidigitators allowed. You know what you did.

At this point, I feel the need to highlight the fact that this show is not for anyone adverse to swear words and dick jokes. In addition to the regular questions sent in by listeners (which leads to a lot of swearing, ridicule between the Brothers and some pretty questionable sexual discoveries), the Brothers also field questions from the Yahoo! Answers section. The dark side of humanity resides in Yahoo! Answers. One of the questions they fielded in the last show I listened to was:

My boyfriend goes #2 on my bathroom floor, should I allow this? He says he can’t go on a regular toilet because he has to squat due to a medical problem. But he cleans up afterward.

And now we can never unknow this.

MBMBAM is probably not for everyone. In addition to the swearing and revelations on how twisted humanity truly is, there are some deep, deep pop culture cuts especially in the sci-fi and fantasy realms. If you’re familiar enough with terrible 90s comedies, patronuses, and Gom Jabbars, you’ll eat this shit up. If not, those segments will sounds even more absurd and nonsensical than the show usually is.

But if are interested in life advice from three highly geeky, foul-mouthed, sexually open brothers, My Brother, My Brother and Me is the way to go. And don’t forget to kiss your dad square on the lips.